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Gw name their vehicles from a certain catagory of aniamals, changing the catagory for different races. This does not apply to all races.

Space Marine Vehicles: Earthen Animals.
Rhino
Predator
Im sure there was more...

Space Marine Weapons: Weather Conditions:
Storm Bolter
Hurricane Missile Launcher
Whirlwind
Cyclone Missile Launcher
Land speeder Typhoon
Land Speeder Storm
Thunderfire
Deathwind

Then we have all the other latern stuff like vindicator, redeemer(?), phobos and terminus ultra and stuff.

Eldar: Lesser Mythical Creatures:
(Wave) Serpent
Wraith
Falcon (bird)
Banshee
Harlequin
Reaper
Avatar

Imperial Guard Vehicles: Greek Greater Mythical Creatures:
Chimera
Basilisk
Hellhound
Griffon
Hydra
Collossus
Manticore
Devil Dog
Medusa
Valkyrie
Sentinel


I just thought it was interesting how they do that. Any other ones you have noticed?

I never paid attention to it until now. However the Tau has a similar theme with all kinds of fish, which is more noticable than others. In the Avatar's case, however, it's quite a literal meaning since it is the embodiment of Khaine we're talking about.

I have noticed this. I always thought that the tau ships where named due to their shape or size(ther then the manta, which is just the shape)

Since when were Valkyries from GREEK mythology and Avatars lesser mythological creatures?

Tyranid hive fleets are named after giant, mythological creatures.

Tau have aquatic animals

List of names used.
-Barracuda
-Devil fish
-Hammerhead
-Piranha
-Manta
-Tiger Shark
-Orca

The odd one out is the Skyray, I wonder how that wasn't named a fish

Lord Castellan wrote:Since when were Valkyries from GREEK mythology and Avatars lesser mythological creatures?

*technically* Valks are from the Imperial Navy. And again Avatars are more of a direct description of the things, not exactly a reference to myth.

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:Tau have fish

List of names used.
-Barracuda
-Devil fish
-Hammerhead
-Piranha
-Manta
-Tiger Shark

The odd one out is the SkyRAY, I wonder how that wasn't named a fish

Its a ray. Like a sting ray, but in the sky. Thought I would highlight for your convenience. Took me a little bit to see it though.

Happygrunt wrote:

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:Tau have fish

List of names used.
-Barracuda
-Devil fish
-Hammerhead
-Piranha
-Manta
-Tiger Shark

The odd one out is the SkyRAY, I wonder how that wasn't named a fish

Its a ray. Like a sting ray, but in the sky. Thought I would highlight for your convenience. Took me a little bit to see it though.

Ah. When I thought Ray, the image of a wave/column of light came to mind.

Thanks for clearing that up

Yeah i think that the tau is the most evident and they do follow the theme of water animals. I think they do it because it is more understandable than any funny made up names and just continues along the theme of that race. I think it also is easier to remember when they are themed like that.

Lord Castellan wrote:Since when were Valkyries from GREEK mythology and Avatars lesser mythological creatures?

Are you questioning GW?

Because if you are...

Evaelc wrote:Yeah i think that the tau is the most evident and they do follow the theme of water animals. I think they do it because it is more understandable than any funny made up names and just continues along the theme of that race. I think it also is easier to remember when they are themed like that.

The Tau and Necrons are both the biggest examples of the "these are supposed to have been named by the Imperial Intelligence Services in the field".

Coincidentally dark eldar vehicles share the same names with what I like to call my member.

Interesting, yes. But what i find more interesting, is that apparently I, and some others, didn't realise that falcons were mythical creatures. Care to elaborate on this?

asimo77 wrote:Coincidentally dark eldar vehicles share the same names with what I like to call my member.

so your "Raider" likes to "Ravager" and shoots "Venom"?
Classy

Something like that. I occasionally call him "obliterator" or "terminator" as well.

Perseus entered the labyrinth of King Minos to face the ancient greek monster known only as 'Devil Dog'!

The best example is tyranids they are named after positions in Roman/greek society. Lictor (senator bodyguard) Haruspex (a prophet who divines the future from entrails) Carnifex (Latin for Butcher) tyrant (a greek king), Harridan is a classical word (not sure if greek or roman) for a horrible old lady. Zoanthropy was a greek word for some mental illness. pretty sure there was a Praetor in Epic. Then in third and fifth addition they got sloppy 'gargoyle', 'tyrannofex', 'tervigon' etc The oddest name for tyranids is termagant it was a word used in the Dark ages to refer to muslims.
Drizzle bolter, cloudy cannon, sleet missile launcher. My member is called the 'Grotesque' or 'Talos pain engine'

Happygrunt wrote:

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:Tau have fish

List of names used.
-Barracuda
-Devil fish
-Hammerhead
-Piranha
-Manta
-Tiger Shark

The odd one out is the SkyRAY, I wonder how that wasn't named a fish

Its a ray. Like a sting ray, but in the sky. Thought I would highlight for your convenience. Took me a little bit to see it though.

Often times, rays (generally the larger species) can be witnessed jumping out of the water, and gliding above the water for short distances. This may be the basis for the "sky" in "skyray"

Guess I have never really paid attention to that. Well my interest in the IG just went up a few pegs since you made me aware of that pattern!

Haha that's one of the first things I noticed was their naming convention

Mukkin'About wrote:

asimo77 wrote:Coincidentally dark eldar vehicles share the same names with what I like to call my member.

so your "Raider" likes to "Ravager" and shoots "Venom"?
Classy

asimo77 wrote:Something like that. I occasionally call him "obliterator" or "terminator" as well.

And here I was hoping for Talos Pain Engine

yeah, "bane wolf" "vendetta" and "devil dog" don't fit any mythos, while "valkyrie" is nordic. Otherwise, it's true.

You know and it makes sense. Even contemporary armies use classes of names for classes of weapons. The US air force has the "raptor" and the "falcon" and the "blackbird" while the helecopter fleet is the "apache", "chinook" and "blackhawk", while the US ballistic missile fleet has the "atlas", "titan", and "polaris".

Funny.

Various Human cultures name weapons after weather conditions too and vehicles after animals.

Wirbelwind - German for "whirlwind" - quad mount 20mm FLaK vehicle from WW2.
Urugan - Russian for "Hurricane". Multiple rocket launcher artillery, vehicle mounted. Like a Katyusha but bigger. Their answer to MLRS.

A-10 "Warthog" - because it's butt ugly.
F-1/11 "Aardvark" - because due to it's TFR, it spends most of its time with it's nose 'scraping the ground'.

The 'Rhino' is an existing military vehicle name.

I always took the "land" (as in Arkhan Land) stuff to be a reference to Edwin Land, developer of the "land camera" (aka Polaroid. Who developed the first photo quality inkjet printer, thus killing off their own product.)

I always preffered the ridiculous cold war British secret project names. They were funny.

Ailaros wrote:yeah, "bane wolf" "vendetta" and "devil dog" don't fit any mythos, while "valkyrie" is nordic. Otherwise, it's true.

You know and it makes sense. Even contemporary armies use classes of names for classes of weapons. The US air force has the "raptor" and the "falcon" and the "blackbird" while the helecopter fleet is the "apache", "chinook" and "blackhawk", while the US ballistic missile fleet has the "atlas", "titan", and "polaris".

For planes there is also the F-15 eagle and the AIM-7 Sparrow missile

purplefood wrote:I always preffered the ridiculous cold war British secret project names. They were funny.

Yes.

My favorite comes from the manhattan project. When the Americans were conferring with their British colleagues about the development of nuclear weapons, the americans switched elements around, so "carbon" became "nitrogen" and "oxygen" became "silicon".

But for whatever reason, the american scientists let the british come up with the codeword for uranium, which they insisted be called "tube alloy".

Ailaros wrote:

purplefood wrote:I always preffered the ridiculous cold war British secret project names. They were funny.

Yes.

My favorite comes from the manhattan project. When the Americans were conferring with their British colleagues about the development of nuclear weapons, the americans switched elements around, so "carbon" became "nitrogen" and "oxygen" became "silicon".

But for whatever reason, the american scientists let the british come up with the codeword for uranium, which they insisted be called "tube alloy".

My favorite was the nuclear land mine
Codenamed: Blue Peacock...
as a side not it had chickens inside (No i will never explain why, it's more fun that way)

The Banewolf and Devil Dog seems to be the result of a very poor attempt at follwing the Hellhound's name. It all consists of "Something bad and had religious meaning" + "Some word for Canine". While the former only fits vaguely with the word "Bane", it nonetheless follows for the other two and "Bane" is likely trying to describe the type of ammunition. However it's a very poor attempt at naming since the names just sounds weird (if I remember, the only other time I've ever heard the term Devil Dog being used was some old crazy lady on the simpsons yelling "THREE HEADED DEVIL DOG!" at some random hobo, so I cant take the name seriously).

Carnifex is latin for Executioner, not butcher. Thank you death metal!

Mattieau wrote:Interesting, yes. But what i find more interesting, is that apparently I, and some others, didn't realise that falcons were mythical creatures. Care to elaborate on this?

Under egyptian mythology, which has been meshed into some parts of the Eldar background (though ATM I can only think of it in artistic depictions). So he's not exactly wrong on that